


Playing Dice in the Dark

by shealynn88



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, aziraphale!Cas, crowley!Dean, forked tongue, hacked mythology, in interesting places, less plot than you'd think, reluctant torture, smore!smut, tasteless innuendo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-05 18:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19045993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shealynn88/pseuds/shealynn88
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale have been frenemies since the Beginning, through every new incarnation of good and evil Management throws at them.  Now, with the apocalypse scheduled, it may be time to try something new.Orders had changed over time, and Management had found a way to get their claws back into their earth-bound servants. God was busy and the Powers wanted to see more exciting battles on the ground. Prophets had been called on to write the scripts.Aziraphale wanted to be a good servant.  It was what he was created for, after all.  But it turned out he was a bit reluctant when it came right down to it.  He and the demon had spent so long at the fringes of each other’s lives, it seemed rude to interrupt that with torture. And so it was that Crowley captured Aziraphale and provided the show that had been demanded.  A new age, the Powers said. And both of them were reborn at their bosses’ behest, as it had been written.Aziraphale now answered to Prometheus.





	Playing Dice in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Great liberties have been taken both with SPN and Good Omens. 
> 
> Mythologically consistent torture is depicted in vague to moderate detail with hurt/comfort aspects.
> 
> Huge and enormous endless thanks to [drawlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drawlight/pseuds/drawlight) for encouragement and betaing - all disasters remaining are my own.

In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth, and a bunch of angels to keep track of His vast creation, because, apparently, even the big man upstairs wanted a day off once in a while.

And in this beginning, there was an angel, Aziraphale. A bit soft, yes, but _good,_ just as he was designed. He gave his flaming sword to the crouched humans in the rain because they were cold and wet and shivering, and if his Father wasn’t going to do something, it only made sense that  _ he  _ should. He’d been tasked with their care, after all, and it was looking like he’d be doing this for a while. Might as well make nice with the locals.

Yellow eyes had watched him curiously. Then, and for the next century, as Angels fell and the Bottomless Pit was organized (all part of the ineffable Plan, of course), those eyes watched and wondered and created a little mayhem on the side, just for kicks. Crowley was an angel who had Fallen and become a demon, and he’d been good at falling (more of a saunter, really - slow and with great aplomb) but sort of terrible at taking orders once he got there. And Earth was a good place to be, because humans were odd and interesting, and this angel had just been begging to be pranked for  _ eternity. _

***

 

Orders had changed over time, and Management had found a way to get their claws back into their earth-bound servants. God was busy and the Powers wanted to see more exciting battles on the ground. Prophets had been called on to write the scripts. 

Aziraphale  _ wanted  _ to be a good servant.  It was what he was created for, after all.  But it turned out he was a bit reluctant when it came right down to it.  He and the demon had spent so long at the fringes of each other’s lives, it seemed rude to interrupt that with torture. And so it was that Crowley captured Aziraphale and provided the show that had been demanded.  A new age, the Powers said. And both of them were reborn at their bosses’ behest, as it had been written.

Aziraphale now answered to Prometheus.  Crowley to Hephaestus. 

It had started out straightforward, just as it had been laid out on paper (in blood, if you were getting technical). Torture and mayhem; screams and begging. Hephaestus would come by first thing in the morning to touch Prometheus’s torn skin and make it new, and Prometheus would be able to take a few blessed breaths before the Eagle came again and Hephaestus had to bid him a quick farewell so he could move on to all the other cursed things he had scheduled. Hell had kept him so busy back then. Real micromanagers.

But things had to change over time. You don’t just leave two beings with only each other for centuries and expect nothing to change, right? With the demons spread so thin, Hephaestus had had no one to talk to. And with the whole being-chained- to-a-boulder-getting-his-liver-eaten thing, Prometheus was sort of a perfect audience.  Captive, you might say. And mostly attentive. So it only made sense when Hephaestus started chatting with him in the mornings. And Prometheus, well, it was hard to hold a grudge against the only intelligent life you’d seen for a hundred and fifty-two years. The torture, after all, wasn’t really something to hold against the demon. Just doing his job, after all. And he did seem so sad sometimes, tucking in against Prometheus’s side, healing with a touch or a kiss or a long caress, and then settling in to talk about how Agares had tried to take credit for Vesuvius, or how Shiva had pulled him back to Hell just as he was getting somewhere with the priestesses of Avalon.

“I was this close,” he’d said in frustration. “Would have had them eating out of my hand.” He had arched an eyebrow in that deviant way of his. “Would have had them eating out of my  _ lap." _

Years had gone by and on the slow days the Eagle wouldn’t come at all. Sometimes Hephaestus would take the shackles off and rub Prometheus’s arms and wings to soothe them. There had been days where he’d pack a lunch and they’d sit at the foot of the big boulder and eat together. Hephaestus would fill him in on the significant events - the political machinations in Heaven and Hell, the sibling rivalries that had grown into thunderstorms and volcanoes and floods.

Sometimes they’d get a whole weekend to lie in each others’ arms. Prometheus would feed Hephaestus grapes, and tell him stories of the humans he’d helped to cheer him up. And if the cheering was mostly done while he was mocked for his kindness, that was all right.

Other times, when there had been too many consecutive days of having his liver torn out (the Eagle wasn’t always that careful and that time he’d had his stomach split open at daybreak and had to go through a good twenty hours of sepsis setting in...well, he’d certainly given Hephaestus a piece of his mind after  _ that) _ and the pain was getting to him, Hephaestus would pull him down and touch him in all the places that needed healing and some that didn’t, and that was good, too. 

It wasn’t a bad way to pass the time, all told. 

But all good things must come to an end, and Hephaestus had gotten a new name and a new post, and the day had come when Prometheus had put his hands behind his back obediently and gotten nothing but a kiss for his troubles. “Not today, love. I’m shipping out,” Hephaestus had said. “See you soon?” he’d asked.

And in another century, he did.

***

The angel was going by Adamanziel, now, and the demon was Moloch. 

Moloch was causing a lot of headaches for the Powers upstairs, and they’d called Adamanziel to them.  _ Take care of it, _ they said.  _ Do your job or we’ll send someone to do it for you. Gabriel, or Michael. We don’t  _ want  _ to, _ they said,  _ but it’s written, _ they said. 

“Hellfire, really?  A _spit_?” Moloch was offended.

“Hold  _still_ ,” the angel muttered irritably.  “I’ve got to get the knots right.”

“There’s no imagination here.  Bollocks, the new Prophets are just... _boring_ , aren’t they?  Remember the Eagle? That was _epic_ , am I right?  I mean, I did add a _little_ something - they were going to just have him spear you through the middle every day, but that just had no flair.  The liver, I told them. It’s  _ poetic." _  He started to turn and Adamanziel had to haul him back around to finish tying the ropes up his arms.   Moloch continued. “Did you know I got no credit on that one? Five translations later, and it was all Zeus’s idea. Nothing. I wasn’t so much as a footnote!”

Adamanziel patted him on the back gently and then hung him over the fire.  “You did a fine job with it,” he soothed. “Sometimes you just have to take pride in your own work, and let that be enough.”

“A decade of this?” Moloch managed, words punctuated with hisses.  “I’m going to die of boredom.”

“I know, the good old days had some real characters.  But times have changed, they're liking the simplicity of Fire and Brimstone. Anyhow, Matthew wrote it this way,” Cas said gently, turning the spit to get an even roast.

“Fucking Prophets.  You always do what’s written?”

Adamanziel shrugged.  “It’s my job.” He didn’t like it, but it was literally the entire reason for his existence.   And he liked it here on earth, with the humans. He liked it here with Moloch.

Adamanziel shifted uncomfortably when the hisses turned to low whines.  “My arms are tired,” the angel said finally, not wanting to impugn the demon’s dedication to the cause.  “Let’s take a break until morning.” 

The decades ran together like that, Adamanziel’s arms still getting tired conveniently near sundown.  He’d take Moloch down off the spit, untie his limbs and toast marshmallows over the fire while the demon rubbed the circulation back into his limbs. Usually, by the time the marshmallows were perfectly brown, the demon could hold his own skewer, and he’d line the marshmallows up five in a row as Adamanziel took the time to roast each of his individually.

When the burns ran deep into the muscle, Adamanziel would bathe Moloch with spring water and his tongue (angelic healing powers, you know), and then they would eat smores together in the soft glow of the fire. 

Smores, as it turned out, were messy to make and messier to eat, and sometimes Moloch would flick out that lovely forked tongue of his to lick the melted sugar from Adamanziel’s lips. And then the bit on his finger.  And then lower. Swore he tasted it under his robes. Couldn’t be too careful, you know. Only polite to be sure.

And then that tongue sometimes made it into places angels only had for decoration, really, but the uses Moloch found for them were...well, probably wicked, but Adamanziel wasn’t going to complain.

“You really have the most agile tongue,” he’d observed blithely as Moloch had wrapped it around his decorative appendage.

The demon had lifted his head and winked. “You have no idea. Where do you think they got the idea for the ouroboros?”

***

It had been decades since they’d seen each other when they met, more or less by chance, in the tiny town of Lawrence, Kansas.

“Adamanziel!” Moloch exclaimed, folding the angel in an undignified, full-body press of a hug.

“It’s Castiel,” he corrected, tugging the edge of his trenchcoat to settle it back in place, noticing with no particular interest how muscular Moloch had gotten, how form fitting his chosen attire.

The demon laughed, then, the sound low and a bit rough. “Castiel!  I like it. I'm sorry you didn’t get a mention in the official Book after our last meeting.  Too bad, really, that roasting really stood the test of time. But, _Adamanziel_. That was a  _ mouthful." _ One eyebrow crested briefly above his dark glasses, his mouth went gorgeously crooked. “But then,  _ you _ always have been a mouthful, haven’t you?”

Castiel felt himself turn pink.

Dean had moved on.  “Ah, yes. New times, Cas, and new us-es.” The demon pointed at himself with his thumb. “Dean Winchester.”

Castiel expected a bow - the demon had always had a bit of a flair for the dramatic. But no, it seemed he’d gone native - just pointed two fingers like guns, then lifted his sunglasses to wink one yellow eye.

Without ceremony or further conversation, Dean grabbed Castiel’s arm and turned to drag him back the way he’d come. “We have to catch up, buddy. First things first, you  _ have _ to try this pie,” Dean said, pulling him into a bakery.

Castiel looked around at the brightly lit shop, oddly warm and inviting. “Have you...have you  _ blessed _ this place?”

Dean looked affronted. “No, of course not...I mean, well, yeah, a little.” He waved it away. “If I’d cursed it, I’d have ruined the pie, Cas. Once you taste it, you’ll understand.”

Castiel didn’t bother to tell him about the rude man in the Cadillac that he’d cursed on the way into town. Some people just needed an...adjustment of attitude, didn’t they? And it wasn’t worth calling Dean over every tiny infraction when they could just...help each other out a bit. Hard to be everywhere at once, after all. Would have gotten done either way.

Dean ordered the pie with a wink to the waitress and then pressed close to Castiel, ignoring that there was another side of the table entirely. “So, Cas,” he said conspiratorially. “Are you here for the apocalypse?”

He wasn’t supposed to say, of course. Consorting with the enemy, his bosses might call it. But they weren’t really enemies anymore, were they? Not when they’d been working together (against each other) for longer than they’d worked with anyone on their respective sides.

“Yes,” he said. “There’s a boy here, they said.”

Dean nodded, then paused as the waitress dropped off their pie.

“Oh, you have to try this,” and he offered Castiel a forkful.

It really was as good as Dean claimed, something with currants and raspberries and the tang of alcohol. Castiel licked the last crumbs off his lips and opted not to request another bite. He did, after all, have  _ some _ angelic decorum. Gluttony being a sin and all.

Dean moaned shamelessly. “Mmm...Cas, doesn’t this pie taste like  _ sin?" _

Castiel just raised an eyebrow.

Dean leered. “You know you love it.”

“This is serious,” Cas finally said.

“Yeah, I know. Of course. I mean, if I have to go back to Hell, I’d never eat this pie again. Not ever. Just...steaks and screaming, forever. How much of that can a guy really take? I mean, you’ll get sick of the lutes, right? We have all the good musicians. Mozart. Rachmaninoff - you love him. Handel.”

“You can keep him,” Cas said quietly.

Dean laughed.

“We should get the kid, Cas. We’d make better parents than any of the sons-of-bitches our guys are sending.”

“We don’t know the first thing about parenting,” Castiel corrected him, taking the bite of pie Dean held out to him. Only to be polite. And also because it was delicious.

“What is there to know? You give them food and teach them to drive cars and how to throat punch and water board and gut fish-”

“No, you give them love and sustenance and teach them kindness and compassion and how to lift up the destitute.”

Dean looked up, mouth full. “That’s what I meant.”

Castiel sighed. “We can’t just...kidnap the Antichrist, Dean.” 

“Why not?”

“Because...because this isn’t how it goes! Because it’s not for us to decide!”

Dean gulped his coffee. “Why not?”

“Because we’re just servants! We don’t make the big decisions!”

Dean shoveled another forkful in before asking again, “Why not? We’ll just swap him with a changeling, it’ll be fine.”

_ "Because _ \- oh, for Heaven’s sake -” Castiel considered that maybe he’d had more experience with child-like beings than he’d initially thought.

Dean’s expression went sour. “Don’t swear at me, Cas. You don’t want the apocalypse. I don’t want the apocalypse. Look at all these nice people, eating pie and assuming that, you know, they’re not going to be blown to bits next Tuesday. You like them. You’ve  _ always _ liked them.”

“But  _ you _ don’t.”

The demon had the grace to look embarrassed.  “Well. I mean, of course not. I’m a demon. But they’re creative in their misery. I can appreciate that. And they make pie. And _ you  _ like them. And I like you. That’s enough for me.” 

Castiel sighed and rolled his eyes. “Oh, fine, yes. Then let’s just settle down and raise an Antichrist together.” (It would take years for Dean to realize this was sarcasm.)

Dean grinned broadly. “I knew it. I  _ knew _ you wanted to go all ‘Bert and Ernie’ domestic with me.”

Castiel closed his eyes. “I don’t even know what what that means.”

Dean edged closer, kissed his cheek and then waited patiently until Castiel turned in and kissed him properly. “Give me a decade, I’ll get you up to speed.”

Castiel considered the reality of changing the Plan - stealing the Antichrist and slipping away.  It was a terrible idea. 

“We should talk about the logistics,” he said with a sigh.  It wasn’t his fault, really. He was created to follow, after all.  He was just going off script a bit with the followee.

***

In the end, the apocalypse was more of a slow burn than the inferno both sides had been hoping for, and they all lost interest when their Antichrist didn’t end up doing much in the way of Hellfire and Damnation.  Its Hellhound disappeared, and it did nothing of significance for years and years and years. They all moved on to more interesting things, like reforesting the Sahara, making intricate crop circles, and abolishing net neutrality.

And Castiel and Dean raised the Antichrist to love sunsets and fishing and Led Zeppelin (and the Queen album the Led Zeppelin inevitably turned into), and if he sometimes came home with a phoenix or a harpy, they chalked it up to a phase. And if his dog, Spot, never did age, even after the kid had gotten two PhDs and had started working on a third (Physics, this time), well, they were never going to mention it. And, except for that incident in Cleveland (a great place for a volcano, they’d concluded eventually), they agreed they’d done all right.

***

“With love, all things are possible,” Cas said softly as they stood, hand in hand, watching the sun set.

Dean made a noise of disgust. “You really are just gross. With  _ sin, _ maybe. With cheat codes and greased palms, okay.   _ Then, _ maybe, all things are possible.”

Castiel pulled him close, unruffled. “With you, then. With  _ you, _ all things are possible.”

Dean tipped his head against Castiel’s temple. Flicked a forked tongue against his cheek and took a breath as if he would argue. Sighed. “Okay, yeah. With me, all the things.” Dean’s voice was low in Castiel’s ear. “Speaking of which…”

“Kama Sutra?”

Dean chuckled, warm and low. “Not a bad way to end an evening, is it?”

No, Castiel thought. All in all, not a bad way to end anything.


End file.
